Zombie in the City

It didn’t have to be good, it had to be ready Tuesday. Turns out Space Ship Earth is a half baked high school science project left out behind the barn, has become infested and needs to be sprayed.

Level Zero:

Zombie attacks are nowhere God keeps an eye on.

The world appears perfectly normal, no zombies on anyone’s radar. We’re free to go about living, loving, killing and cheating each other as usual. The only monsters are are among ourselves and they have lawyers.

Level One:

Zombies attacks are few and far away. Reports are unreliable.

Government and media gate keepers conspire to keep the public unaware real zombies exist.

Watch for news of the weird stories that don’t make sense without the addition of the word zombie(s). Violent attacks where the attacker(s) have to be shot multiple times attributed to unknown drugs. Strange strings of deaths, increased reports of mob violence triggered supposedly by unnamed chemical gasses.

Pay attention when rows of houses and whole city blocks are destroyed by “gas leaks” or “terrorist bomb builders” without an investigation or report available to the public.

Take heed when boats, trains and planes go inexplicably out of control killing all aboard or when survivors succumb to their injuries the following day.

Level Two:

The transitional twilight of civilization as we fade from safe to sorry we didn’t plan/prepare better.

Coming out of Level One, zombie attacks are closer and more frequent. Not that you’d know from reports on the lame stream media. Zombies can be scratching on your door, media will be unchanged until an anchor is bitten live on air and even then there will be an attempt to explain it away as a prank, only the anchor won’t be back.

Even so, monitor the media for vague reports on strange disease outbreaks, temporary border closings, air travel restrictions, etc.

Before things get outta hand, this is the time to take steps to finish preparing for a siege. Planning and Zoning will still be in place not allowing you to do any real work outside such as high fences, walls, and such. Lay in those building supplies for later. However, indoor work they can’t inspect is open to interpretation.

For example: Consider walling off a hallway to create a secret door. Consider walling in, framing your staircase, using 3/4 one good side BCX plywood and a steel door with dead bolts. Just in case the lower floor is invaded it will keep them out of the second floor. Build a safe room, 3/4 ply, walls, ceiling, floor, steel door and frame with dead bolt. Single floor, have a sealable access to the attic and a hatch or hatchet to escape to the roof if necessary.

DO NOT BECOME A MURDERER !!!

Even after zombies are a fact of life, local law enforcement is going to see dead bodies as evidence to be investigated. Take great care not to be implicated as a holding cell awaiting bail is nowhere you want to be during a zombie apocalypse.

Lawyers will volunteer to defend zombies and get bitten. Count on it.

The safest place to be, is in your own well supplied fortified home, while the police outside take care of the problem.

Play along to get along. At this stage small outbreaks of the infected will be handled like home invasions by S.W.A.T. and Rapid Response Tactical Squads whose mission will be to remove the threat.

DO NOT BECOME PART OF THE THREAT !!!

Never ever speak the word zombie in front of these people. Ask (if you must) what that was and clearly accept whatever answer is given at face value. If these people think you are going to spread the word about zombies, you and your loved ones just became more exterminated zombies on the pile.

Keep in mind, minor outbreaks are not the end of the world.

Most zombies will come from relatively weak morgue and medical employees, not the local athletic teams. Stay in your house. Do not go out zombie hunting, drunk or otherwise. There is a good chance the CDC and Tactical Squads will eliminate the threat. We will have to live within the law, with whatever we’ve done to our homes and neighborhood, so play it safe, play along.

Level Three:

As Level Two transitions into Level Three: The police have better things to do then take your calls or no longer exist as a functional force. The military is in active combat with zombie flash mobs.

A quarter of the city and burbs are stalled on the highway waiting to become a zombie buffet. A quarter are zombies. A quarter have taken the CDC’s advice and moved into shelters (soon to be over run). And a quarter are relatively secure in their homes awaiting further developments.

The most effective zombie defense is not coming to their attention.

No lights, no generator, no cooking, no music, no smoking, no end of the world party, play possum house. This shouldn’t be as hard as you’d think as you’ll need earplugs to keep from being driven into the crazies by the zombie moans while trying to sleep, etc.

Actually at this point outlaw humans are more to be feared as they will be looking for the very supplies you’ve stockpiled along with fresh victims to torment. They will be where the cops, army, zombies are not.

Wanted: Zombies. No Cannibals Need Apply

There will be those who think they can become zombies by imitation and perhaps escape their fate. Warning: Their human bite is infectious.

Also, that crying wreak who turns up on your doorstep, whose family supposedly was eaten. They can stop pretending and kill you just as quick. Or go nuts letting fiends and zombies in to satisfy their need to repent their sins or whatever nonsense fuels their insanity.

Like the Governor? The Teo Of Badass

As Level Three progresses, monitor media, police bands, whatever you can pull in to get a feel for who’s winning. Whether to stay put or move to a more secure location previously scouted during good times.

Learn how to pick a lock, have the tools, take a locksmith course.

Look for a free standing building where zombies can’t fall onto the roof from higher neighboring structures. Where the elevators can be shut down and blocked open on a high floor. Where the lower stair case can be dropped without destroying the structural integrity of the building. A roof garden is a nice touch as is a water storage tank.

Office buildings tend to be attractive deserts with few provisions beyond vending machines, with broad plate glass windows impossible to secure from zombie head butts.

First look for zombie bodies indicating the location may be defended.

Try the door, if locked bang on the door, listen for zombie moans.

Many buildings have an outside electrical room with a wall shared with the inside of the building you want to enter. An easy sledge hammer entry, but may attract zombies to be waiting for your head to appear.

The main problem with more secure locations, is someone is usually already in them, maybe playing possum. Your breaking in makes you the outlaw and makes it hard to secure the location at that entry point.

If there are people hiding inside, quickly assure them you are friendly, have supplies to share and are there to help defend.

If apparently empty, conduct a sweep and destroy for zombies. Remember zombies do not hide or apply any strategy to attack their prey other then approaching it. On the other hand they can become trapped in almost anything a body can be squeezed into from a closet to a cooler to under dirty water in a bath tub. People not wanting to harm zombie friends and family may have locked them into a secure place. People bitten may have locked themselves into a safe room to protect others for after they turn. A good poking tool can come in handy on such a hunt.

Locate construction equipment. Plow abandon vehicles into barricades around your building so the area can be patrolled, guarded. Maintain the equipment so you can bulldoze snow plow your way out of the city when the time comes.

There are secure places that don’t come with bathrooms and kitchens, such as inspection access ports under some overpasses, bridge and tunnel structures, electrical substation buildings.

Level Four:

When zombies roam the earth, it’s because there is no longer easy prey in the city. As people exhaust supplies, as cities become toxic with the stench of rotting flesh, people will head for the rural areas, farm country, green acres. Where they will find well defended homesteads and plenty of zombies swarming to overrun them.

The time will come when the only remaining survival option is to leave the city, pass through the devastated rural areas, into places where zombies will be few and far between, deep wilderness.

It is impossible to cover every possible eventuality without writing a book. Reading some like Mysterious Island, Robinson Crusoe, Max Brooks, points the imagination in the right direction. Having a quality survival guide book in your bug-out-bag should prove helpful.

To have crops, one has to have heirloom seed to plant in a temperate zone, it will be hard to find a place far enough away to be safe, that every other survivalist hasn’t already thought of and is heading for.

Deep woods shelter: A log cabin has proven itself to be a pretty tough customer against attack when built properly.

Consider a tree fort for grownups. Tree canopy hideout, rope ladders that can be pulled up, live Swiss Family Robinson Ewok style.

Don’t totally blow off the thought of community, building a stockade fort Apache style or F-Troop take your pick. In the 16-19 hundreds people just like us armed with a rifle, knife, steel axe, rope and a few hand tools, built just about everything out of local product.

Some authors seem to enjoy pointing out nowhere is totally safe from zombies and other natural disasters, that may be true, but as you can’t win, can’t get out of the game, pick one and take your best shot at breaking even.

They will suggest zombies, that can not even climb stairs, will somehow climb a stack of writhing zombies to get over your wall. That zombies will forever pull or press on barred doors and windows until they get in or for as long as they sense someone is in there.

That zombies can work together to push over a bus or motor home or armored truck when their sole natural strategy is to approach prey from all directions provided they happen to be all directions out from said prey.

Just as every zombie story is different, the plague outbreak we experience will have its own set of rules, learn them quickly.

A great hideout would be any abandon or semi-abandon as in not currently manned, government structure that’s well fenced and hardened such as an old automated radar station. See 2007 zombie movie: Days of Darkness.

Carry some biker quality locks, chains and a bolt cutter if you have reliable transportation to such a facility.

Not only is a cave or mine a good choice, you may be able to purchase land cheap that has one. You can seal the opening down to a hatch (think TV show Lost) you can wiggle through. Embellish with a warning sign, Zombie Storage Pit #3, or Warning Poison Sewer Gasses, Collapsed Mine, etc.

Roads take outlaws, zombies and us to great places. If you can find a place you want to stay at such as a ranger station and you can take out the only road, say burn a bridge, that creates a securer location.

How about a small ship or boat with high sides your party can anchor out in the river or off shore. Camouflage with red paint hand prints on the windows and you’re good to go.

What if you’re the last of us, last of the living, last man on earth, the omega man so to speak. Well one person needs the least supplies, depends on no one else for protection, needs to survive longer then the dead to win.

Mainly you need a safe secure location behind steel and concrete when possible to live and mainly to sleep. Avoid bank vaults unless you also want to be safe from oxygen. A secret fallout shelter, tornado shelter, even a safe room in a otherwise abandon looking house, tractor trailer cab with sleeping cabin, armored car, riot tank or army tank if you can find one in running condition. The only problem with turning a armored half track troop carrier into a sweet motor home is poor fuel mileage and how badly roads are blocked where you need to go.

Level 5: The Future

Will nature allow a future for mankind beyond a planet of the apes lifestyle? Will mother nature keep some zombies on ice so an attack at the harvest festival is always a slim possibility? Unfortunately the answer is, Yes! We must forever be on our guard, living as we were in Fort Apache days, with a rifle, axe or entrenching tool always at our side, the stockade within running distance.

“Before you act, consider; when you have considered, it’s fully time to act.”
Sallust